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Extracted from Consolidated Report
This investigation was originally published as part of a larger consolidated report containing multiple investigations. View the consolidated PDF for the complete document.
Sonoma County Grand Jury
• 2020-2021
Covid-19 Mitigation at the County Jail And Its Unexpected Consequences
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 11 findings
F1
Sonoma County did not suffer the COVID infection and death rates in its jail that other counties did, in large part because of its success in reducing the size of the jail population.
No recommendations for this finding
F2
Without the extraordinary cooperation between the Sonoma County District Attorney, the Sonoma County Public Defender, and the Sheriff, the incarcerated population would not have dropped dramatically early in the pandemic and remained at historic low levels for more than one year.
No recommendations for this finding
F3
The reduction in the size of the County’s incarcerated population resulted in a substantial reduction in Sheriff’s Office Detention Division overtime.
No recommendations for this finding
F4
Keeping the incarcerated population at or below 800 people would save the County between five and six million dollars every year.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Sheriff’s Office should continue the pandemic-era policies favoring citations over arrests. (F4, F5)
F5
The Sheriff’s practice of issuing citations rather than arrests for misdemeanors and non- violent felonies has helped prevent the MADF population from increasing.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Sheriff’s Office should continue the pandemic-era policies favoring citations over arrests. (F4, F5)
F6
The Implementation of the Zero Cash Bail Initiative has helped to prevent the MADF population from increasing.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
The District Attorney discontinue cash bail for defendants charged with misdemeanors and non-violent, non-sexual, and less serious felonies. (F6)
F7
The Sheriff’s Office and Department of Health Services failed to collaborate in order to alleviate the isolation and reductions in programs that were imposed on the incarcerated population to mitigate health risks.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The Sheriff’s Office implement 30-minutes of video visits per week by September 30, 2021, and continue until it fully restores in-person visits to their pre-pandemic levels. (F7, F8)
F8
The Sheriff’s new policy of inmate visits limited to once per month starting May 1, 2021 is insufficient to relieve a year’s absence of visual communication with friends and family.
Related Recommendations (2)
R1
The Sheriff’s Office develop, no later than September 1, 2021, a policy to restore out of cell activity, in person and video visitation, and all programs to pre-pandemic levels. (F8)
R2
The Sheriff’s Office implement 30-minutes of video visits per week by September 30, 2021, and continue until it fully restores in-person visits to their pre-pandemic levels. (F7, F8)
F9
Allowing jail staff and inmates to refuse testing and vaccination creates a risk to public health.
Related Recommendations (2)
R6
The Sheriff’s Office implement a surveillance-testing program and require 100% participation by all unvaccinated jail staff by September 1, 2021. (F9)
R7
The Sheriff’s Office reassign jail staff who decline vaccination or participation in surveillance testing by September 1, 2021. (F9)
F10
Discharge planners could play an indispensable role in preventing the spread of COVID-19 between the jail and the community.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The Sheriff’s Office and the Board of Supervisors work together to develop a plan by December 31, 2021 to increase the contracted Wellpath resources to fund four additional Wellpath discharge planners for mental health and medical assignment to the Main Adult Detention Facility. (F10, F11).
F11
Adding at least four new discharge planners at the Main Adult Detention Facility would contribute to lowering the recidivism rate and therefore play a key role in maintaining a lower incarcerated population
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The Sheriff’s Office and the Board of Supervisors work together to develop a plan by December 31, 2021 to increase the contracted Wellpath resources to fund four additional Wellpath discharge planners for mental health and medical assignment to the Main Adult Detention Facility. (F10, F11).
Conclusions 2
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CL1 Page 14Sonoma County’s detention facilities have seen no deaths from COVID and have not transferred any cases to a hospital. These positive outcomes resulted from unprecedented coordination and partnership across the County to reduce the incarcerated population quickly after COVID began to spread, and from the Sheriff’s Office timely implementation of measures designed to limit contagion in the jail. Now the Sheriff’s Office and Wellpath need to collaborate to better adapt the jail’s policies and procedures, both to prevent outbreaks and to relieve the isolation and limited activity that have resulted from the jail’s mitigation and quarantine procedures. Keeping everyone safe was the first critical priority, but after more than a year, the Sheriff’s Office and Wellpath must focus on improving living conditions in the jail, especially the isolation and lack of communication with the outside world. By continuing efforts to keep the incarcerated population at or below the levels we experienced during the pandemic, the cost savings will be more than sufficient to defray some of the jail’s longstanding and troubling problems, including the lack of sufficient visiting options, the insufficient number of discharge planners, and unsustainable amounts of mandatory overtime for correctional officers.
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CL2 Page 15The Jury recognizes that fast-moving developments in the fight against COVID may overtake some of its Recommendations. The Jury is hopeful, for example, that everyone who works or sleeps in the County jail is vaccinated by the time this report is published. With the potential for variants and the likely need for booster vaccinations, however, the Jury believes its Findings and Recommendations remain valid and relevant.
Commendations 3
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CM1 Page 15The Jury commends the District Attorney and the Public Defender for their cooperative approach to reducing the County’s incarcerated population to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
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CM2 Page 15The Jury commends the Sheriff’s Office for leading the effort to change policing policies throughout the county to maintain the reduced jail population.
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CM3 Page 15The Jury commends Independent Order of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach for being responsive to inmates’ concerns and prompting the Sheriff’s Office to begin providing inmates with 10 minutes of phone time each day.
No Responses Found 3
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Elected County Office
Sonoma County District Attorney
Elected County Office
Sonoma County Sheriff
Elected County Office